Transferred From Xanga: Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Something that I've been struggling with for a while if not for forever is this whole acceptance deal. Not my acceptance of other people--I think I'm okay with that (maybe even too okay, if you've read that one lengthy verbally diarrheal post)--but with my personal acceptance of myself, and whether or not other people accept me. I think that one of the first memories I have that can trace back to this was when I was in fifth grade, where I had this super kiddie-traumatic experience when my "friends" told me that they didn't like me anymore. Their reasons were, of course, pretty basic: you're annoying and you laugh too loud. These things are probably more true now than they were back then, but suffice it to say that I was pretty devastated, and it actually changed the way that I laughed for at least a year. Ever since that time, I've always been really nervous about the way that other people perceive me. It doesn't help that I'm already an overweight African American girl--my thoughts on how the world would see me were practically destined to be tragically low. On top of that, however, were little encounters such as the one mentioned previously that made me worry that even what made me "me" on the inside wasn't good enough for everybody else. I swear, you would have thought I went to Satan's Darlings Elementary with some of the kiddie-drama I endured there. Really, kiddie-trauma is worse than adult trauma, because it sticks with you longer and you carry all of the results of it into adulthood. If the trauma had happened in adulthood, I probably would have been better equipped to deal with it. Re-boarding my train of thought, acceptance has been something that I've always sought after, and rejection is something that I've always feared. Contrary to what I would have thought, growing stronger in my faith has actually added new facets to the problem, mainly that now I constantly worry about how my Christian friends will perceive me. At SCS, it was pretty much enough just to be a Christian. If you stay quiet during class and keep to the dress code and avoid showing any signs of a bad attitude, everyone assumes that you and God are "tight like this" and hardly anyone ever challenges you on your faith. Once I came to Penn I got a lot more self-motivated, driven by this fear that I wouldn't meet many Christians on a secular campus and that I would be alone with God for the duration of my years at Penn. That was helpful in my walk for the first semester, even after I started going to GCC, but second semester I was driven by a more honest desire to know God more. Insecurities started creeping in from that point onward. I couldn't help comparing myself to other girls, noting all of the strengths in their faith and all of the weaknesses in mine. I got to the point where I started to think about how God sees other people and how He must see me, and from then on I felt as if I were playing this impossible game of catch-up to all of the other people at GCC, whom I felt that God must love so much more than He loves me. Recently, though, I've been thinking about all of this and talking through various related topics with people. I've realized that I put God into this little human-sized compartment, that I have this idea of a God that thinks the same way that a man would think. This just isn't the case. During family group one of the guys shared a parable in which workers come to a field at different times, but they all get the same reward at the end of the day. I took that to heart because it was almost exactly how I had been feeling, like I had come to work late and I had to catch up to all of the work that all of the other sisters were doing or else I would rewarded less. But God is not a respecter of persons, and I forget that so often. I have this legit issue where I constantly worry over people liking other people better then they like me. This is almost always true, but regardless, my actual interactions with people aren't helped by the niggling little voice at the back of my brain that makes me try too hard to get people to like me. Now in my faith I feel as though sometimes I try extra hard to get God to like me and I worry that He likes everyone else better than He likes me, but that's the human-box I've put Him into. Last night after the documentary screening that I went to, I prayed with this woman that I met two seconds earlier, and when she asked me if I had prayer requests I just told her no. I mean, I'm not even sure why I told her no because it's not like everything is peachy keen over here, and I've gotten so much better at just being open, but nevertheless I told her no, so that poor woman had to just pray what she felt about me, after having met me for two seconds. What she prayed inspired this entry, and roughly what she prayed was this: that I would learn to view myself the way that God views me, and that I would know that I am accepted by God, and that I would understand that God has a plan. Two-second-Soo (her name was Soo, or Sue, whatever) had pretty much pegged one of the most prominent issues in my heart. After two seconds. Look at what a strong relationship with God+prayer will do for you. This isn't some issue that I'll be able to fix overnight. I recognize that I've got a bit of a problem here. On the flip side, I also recognize that there is a solution in learning to view myself the way that God views me, and in recognizing that God has a gigantic plan that I will play a tiny part in. So yeah. There you go.